Never ones for subtlety, Fred Phelps and his merry band of lunatic minstrels at the Westboro Baptist Church are making sure their opinion of Heath Ledger -- or lack thereof -- won't be misconstrued by even the densest among us. It was pretty much a given that a guy who rose to critical acclaim playing a gay cowboy would draw the hyperbolic wrath of America's most vocal homophobes, but it's nevertheless shocking the speed with which Phelps and company have gingerly begun proclaiming Ledger's demise and, of course, descension into hell.
This morning, Phelps -- "Phelpsy" as I like to call him in those intimate moments -- rushed to circulation a bombastic press release announcing the intention of he and his traveling roadshow to protest at Ledger's funeral. Their message, as far as I can tell, is that God took time out of his busy schedule striking down average folks by the thousands in Kenya to teach America a lesson about the evils of homosexuality by offing the Joker. According to the press release: "God hates the sordid, tacky bucket of slime seasoned with vomit known as Brokeback Mountain, and he hates all persons having anything whatsoever to do with it."
This is why God was passed over to fill in on Ebert & Roeper while Roger Ebert recovering from surgery -- even Rex Reed isn't as brutal when he doesn't like a movie.
For some time I've held fast to a rather unpopular, if not entirely outlandish opinion: I think Phelps and company are making this crap up. In fact, if it weren't for the fact that they've caused a lot of very real hurt to the families of fallen U.S. soldiers and the victims of assorted other tragedies, I'd probably be one of their biggest fans.
There's simply no way that this level of crazy can be for real.
The antics of the WBC have always been so completely over-the-top, so laugh-out-loud absurd, such a brilliantly ironic indictment of everything its more sophisticated brethren in the Fundamentalist Christian movement stands for that they can't possibly be anything other than Andy Kaufmanesque performance art at its most sublime.
Watching America's garden variety intolerant jackasses stumble and stammer as if Darryl Revok somehow got inside their brains, trying to find a way to simultaneously shun Phelps's psychopathic hostility without dismissing the belief system behind it -- trying to kill only the messenger, as it were -- is just priceless. (If you're looking for a perfect example of this impossible tap-dance, check out the Phelps write-up in Conservapedia.com, in which he's cast as a tool of the Democrats -- as if the Westboro Baptists are so far to the Right that they've gone all the way around and come back on the Left.)
The reality of course -- and I'd love to believe that proving this is secretly their intention -- is that Crazy Fred and his acolytes are doing nothing more than what the Bible instructs. In an admittedly very sick sense, they're people of faith such as even the most ardent Sunday morning church goers will never be. In the same way that a suicide bomber is really little more than an absolute dogmatist -- a believer who has truly done as his sacred text demands by abandoning all rationality to his god -- Fred Phelps has just taken what the Bible itself says and ran with it.
If you've got an issue with him and his "church," then maybe it's time to evoke the sage words of that great religious philosopher, Ice-T: Don't hate the playa, hate the game.
Because Phelps damn sure isn't the only Fundamentalist Christian who called Heath Ledger a sodomite in the wake of "Brokeback Mountain," he's just the only one willing to take his righteous indignation to the next level.
For the record though, practical joke or not, the Westboro Baptists' first foray into the world of celebrity funeral protest should be interesting. They're going to be far away from their home turf and likely walking right into the San Fernando Valley of Death.
God help them.
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We liberals have let bullying goons like him walk all over us for too long.
Phelps needs something legitimate to bitch about. I'd say having a tall, muscular lesbian like me take him down would qualify.
But then, he'd probably love it.
Picketing funerals of gay people may be the only game in town IF W's wars are ended & no Democrap takes over the franchise on 1/20/09.
Don't bother to analyze or insult. Someday they will run out of steam and go away. A year, a decade, whatever. The interim is unpleasant
You are all the personific
It's the ultimate reference of convenienc
Instead of preaching love and peace...th
Religion has been used like a cloak by shameless, power hungry men and women in this Country. And this misuse of Religion has been the cause of of slavery, poverty, subjugatio
I believe in a God...and I believe that these people who commit atrocities in God's name will have a lot of explaining to do in the after life.